Look inside this book.Where the Bush is Burning: A Daily Devotional by [Thomas Tice]

Category: Where the Bush is Burning
What Is The Secret

What Is The Secret

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Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  

Hebrews 12:1-2 

How shall we live the life of faith? The writer of Hebrews refers to all our predecessors as the great cloud of witnesses. The heroes of the faith who he named in the previous chapter comprise that great cloud along with all the other redeemed of all ages. They have gone before us and died in faith. He begins to address us by speaking of our laying aside all the things that would hinder us from success in running the race of faith. These are ‘every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us.’ There are things we must address if we are to successfully live the life of faith. Unpleasantly much of professing Christendom, especially those who emphasize all the obligations and image management, stop here and expound at length all our duties, but fail utterly to get us to the next portion which is the secret of the life of faith. The secret of the life of faith is ‘looking unto Jesus.’ We look to Christ for justification. We look to Christ for our sanctification. For us to succeed in running with endurance, we must look to Him Who is, ‘the author and finisher of our faith.’ The contemplation of Christ leads to the imitation of Christ.  

Our Wise and Gracious God, 
we rejoice that You always hold Christ before us. 
We praise You that as we look unto Him, 
we learn to live the life of faith.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

What More Shall I Say?

What More Shall I Say?

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And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets. 

Hebrews 11:32 

The stories of the lives of the people of faith is the stuff of legends. The writer of Hebrews concludes his chapter on the heroes of the faith long before he runs out of material. He has spoken of faithful people from Abel to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He has included women of faith like Sarah, Moses’ mother and Rahab. He has worked his way through the heroes till he arrives at Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jepthah, and David. He has fully recorded their acts of faith and their sufferings for the truth. Living by faith has taken many people through numerous hardships and even to horrific deaths. The common thread that runs through all their experiences is they lived and died in faith. Their faith was in the character of God; the word of God; the promise of God and the Christ of God. God promised Him in the garden; foretold Him throughout the Old Testament; revealed Him in the New Testament and continues to accomplish all that pertains to Him today. All these people of faith lived and died on the bare promise of God. What more shall we say?  

Great God of Wonders, 
we rejoice that You have told us the stories of all these people of faith. 
We praise You that from them we have learned 
to walk by faith ourselves.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning
By Faith

By Faith

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By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.  

Hebrews 1:4 

‘By faith’ is the phrase the writer of Hebrews repeats often throughout this ‘Faith’ chapter. Having defined faith, he illustrates it from the lives of the ancient believers. He begins with Abel, and proceeds to Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses’ mother, Moses, Rahab and more. What is the common thread that runs through all these examples? They did what they did, ‘by faith.’ God was in their consciousness and interacting with them throughout their life. They did things that were different from one another and their experience of God was highly personalized, yet, each person genuinely experienced God, by faith. This is important to each of us because we are widely diverse. Our life experience, culture, background, education, and personality are different from each other. What is the common thread that runs through all of our lives? It is faith in Christ. We come from every conceivable stripe and variety to faith in the same Christ. They all looked forward by faith, to Christ. We look to the same Christ by faith.  

Our Great and Gracious God, 
we rejoice that You give us faith. 
We praise You that You lead us by faith, 
along the path of Your choosing.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

At The Right Hand

At The Right Hand

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…looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  

Hebrews 12:2 

Christ has been wildly successful in all His undertakings. Our text is telling us the secret of living the life of faith. If we are to live by faith, Christ must fill our vision. He is the end and the means to the end. When we look unto Jesus, what will we see? We will see that He endured all with the grand purpose of the total redemption of His people in view. This total redemption is the joy that was set before Him. We see that He endured it, despising the shame. The insults, calumny and degradation He endured, in no way reflected on His true identity. He has now seated Himself, at His Father’s bidding, at the right hand of the throne of God. This is the proof of the success of all His efforts. He is there, according to various writers of Scripture, waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool. This is important for us because it means we are not part of a lost cause in any way. Now is the time when He is building His church, that is, gathering His redeemed together by the work of the Holy Spirit. He is subduing all things unto Himself. In all His works, Jesus never fails.  

High King of heaven, 
we rejoice that You have redeemed us with  
Your own precious blood. 
We praise You that You will succeed in every way. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning
 
What Is Faith?

What Is Faith?

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Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  

Hebrews 11:1 

What is faith? We use the word, but what is it really? Our text offers the divine definition, but in order for us to understand even that definition, it requires some consideration. What is substance? We would say substance is that which can be empirically experienced. What is evidence? Evidence is the objective, substantive proof of the reality of an event or a thing’s existence. So faith is in what is evidently real and genuinely substantive, even though we have not seen it as yet. What we hope for is based upon all we know of the character of God. It rests upon the presupposition that God ‘is and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him,’ as a later verse in the chapter says. Thus faith is treating as fact what God has said will be, without actually having seen it as yet. We need to have a working definition of faith if we are going to consider the heroes of the faith who appear in the rest of this chapter. Most of all, faith relates us to Christ. The whole book of Hebrews is to point the readers to Christ as the Mediator of the new covenant.  

Our God of Grace and Glory, 
we rejoice that You give us every reason to have faith in You. 
We praise You that all Your works 
point us to Christ. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

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